Do you have a perfect digital marriage?


Please share with others if you have a perfect digital marriage. 

Do you have a streamer (brand and Model) that you have paired with a DAC (brand and model) that has created a blissful marriage creating the best harmony you have heard?

What are the aspects of the sound you really like?

For example  HiFi Rose RX RS130 streamer fed by fiber optic ethernet connected I2S to Denafrips Pontus II, 12th Anniversary DAC.

Organic, clean, musical, great separation of instruments, dynamic

How's you marriage going?

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Yes. Aurrender W20SE —> Audio Research Reference 9CD DAC. Musical, detailed, enveloping, natural with great imaging.. 

The problem is, it sounds just like my great analog end top end Linn LP12 with Koetsue Rosewood Signature cartridge and Audio Research Reference 3 phonostage. I was ecstatic when my digital end at last measured up to my analog end. Now the problem is, there is absolutely no benefit to listen to and of my 2,000 albums. So, I am starting to think about investing another $10K+ into a cartridge to help my vinyl end pull ahead enough to justify using it once in a while. It’s just collecting dust now.

Admittedly, a great problem to have. 

Fiber optic to an Afterdark Netone, to a Gimm Mu1 streamer, via Shunyata Omega AES to a Lampizator Horizon 360 DAC with TP adaptors for NOS tubes. There is both a Roon server and a media storage server. within the Mu1.   I also have a $300 CD transport that feeds the Gimm Mu1 steamer that upsamples the CD feed and turns it into great sound. I use Swiss Digital fuses with Graphene coated slugs in both the streamer and the DAC. The DAC also sits on HIFISTAY footers. Both the streamer and DAC have Source AQ Dragon cords, Finally, the power comes from a pair of Shunyata Typhon 2 (30 amp version) with Snubways and MainStream plug ins, in each of the Typhons. The Afterdark Netone has three components in one slick box...copper to fiber or fiber to copper galvanic bridge, internal linear power supply, multiport switch and an internal XO clock 10 Mhz. Grounding is handled by the Shunyata Altaira with Omega and Sigma V2 ground cables.

I can use many adjectives to describe the sound, but this is the first time in a decades long dance with digital that now and then I forget I'm listening to a recording. Just once in a while, but never before has a system I have heard engaged me as IF it were a live event. 

Ghdprentice-I was in the same boat as you 5 or 6 years ago. I had a $15k tt setup with hundreds of albums. This is when I used Ethernet to the dac. I would have to spend much more on my tt setup to better the sound plus you still had the overhead of maintaining vinyl. I sold everything analog, even all my vinyl and have not regretted it for 1 second. Now I use i2s to the dac and sq has increased. If I wouldn’t have sold my tt setup years ago, I would have now

Not perfect but dam good one thing way over looked is the digital cables 

Tubulus audio Transformed my already good Innuos zen ,Hermes DDC then I2S to my Terminator 15 dac  I bought the Concentus  cable for the USB ,For the I2S the Ximius ,and Concentus for Ethernet  the solid cord silver Air,tube dielectric I believe the best digital cables out there and I have tried Shunyata best, AQ best ,these were less money and at least a 10% improvement in overall fidelity Concentus power cords also.  At a Audio get together one member has a whole system of Tubulus Audio cables ,fromHolland ,could not be happier .